


Smile Though Your Heart Is Aching

by myrifique



Category: Anne of Green Gables - L. M. Montgomery
Genre: Book 8: Rilla of Ingleside, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-17
Updated: 2012-12-17
Packaged: 2017-11-21 09:23:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,413
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/596103
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/myrifique/pseuds/myrifique
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <em>I was woefully thirsty—and I thought of David and the Bethlehem water—and of the old spring in Rainbow Valley under the maples. I seemed to see it just before me—and you standing laughing on the other side of it—and I thought it was all over with me. </em>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	Smile Though Your Heart Is Aching

**Author's Note:**

  * For [katayla](https://archiveofourown.org/users/katayla/gifts).



> Merry yuletide, katayla! I hope you enjoy this story, even though it isn't very merry. I loved your requests!
> 
> Thanks to my fantastic beta! You made this story much better.

On the day that the telephone rang to call Gerald Meredith into town--to turn him from college student to a soldier--Anne Blythe ran into Rainbow Valley, her sister’s hand clutched tightly in her own. Only when she was finally sitting beside the spring did she finally feel like air could fill her lungs once more.

Both of them were silent, Di stroking Nan’s hair with a worried look. Nan knew there were probably hours and hours of conversation ahead of them--for the weeks and months that this war would last, and for many more after that besides--but now, in this moment, the words to express what she felt would not come. For once, words failed her.

“Do you need to cry, to laugh, or--” said Di, finally.

“To breathe,” replied Nan, and she proceeded to do just that, taking one shuddering breath after another.

"I'm not sure I can be of much assistance with that," said Di, with a sad smile and a squeeze of Nan's hand.

"I will smile tomorrow, and maybe even tonight, and then when that's over, I'll need all the help you can offer me," said Nan.

"Well, that's very brave of you," said Di.

“Di, how can I?” asked Nan, her voice breaking. Tears filled the eyes of both sisters.

“Oh, Nan,” sighed Di, “let us be sad now, for just a moment. I’m sure the valley won’t tell.” 

They held each other, though Nan found she was still too shell-shocked to cry. It didn't mean she found her sister's arms any less comforting. It still helped to be in the arms of a friend.

“Maybe the memories of our past laughters shelter the valley from sadness,” said Nan after a moment. 

“A very romantic notion,” said Di. “May we not have cause to test that theory in the days to come.”

“Oh, don’t be cynical, Di, not now,” pleaded Nan. “The train for Charlottetown leaves in five hours and I need all of my dreams of forever happy lands to keep my smile up until then.”

“You might need them before that,” said Di, pointing behind Nan. “Hello, Jerry.”

Nan caught her breath and turned around. “Hello,” he answered. Nan smiled, because Nan always smiled when Jerry appeared. He was smiling too, his face confusingly full of boyish excitement and heartbreaking sadness both.

“I think Jem needs help packing,” said Di, leaving unceremoniously. Nan silently thanked her, too overwhelmed to blush. 

Nan didn’t know how to have this conversation. She knew how to talk to Jerry--had known how to do that for years. She thought about him as a boy giving her the juiciest trouts he’d caught from this same stream, and how she’d heard Faith tease him about her once when they didn’t know she was listening. How the only time he'd ever kissed her had been here, alone in the valley, right where they were standing now, how he had blushed right after and said he’d wait a couple of years before trying that again. How she had dreamed about the kiss for months, then tried to forget about it when Jerry seemed to have forgotten about it too. How they fought about books and politics and religion, and how one day she had realized that between arguments he was looking at her the same way he had right before kissing her, how she had figured out that talking was their way--fit for a minister’s son, fit for people often surrounded by friends--of being together.

It wasn’t even the first time they had a conversation before long partings; Nan remembered fondly the way he had cheered her up before she left for Queens, when she was worried she’d never make friends, and the stories he had told her from the beginnings of their friendship to prove her wrong. He had written her every day for a week and every week after that, just in case she did get lonely. They had continued their correspondence in the past years, Jerry at Redmond, Nan teaching, sometimes even writing when they were both separated only by Mr Taylor’s pasture field and the maple grove.

But every time they had parted, Nan had known exactly when she would see him next. She'd known who he’d be--the Jerry who made her laugh, who made her furious, who made her dream. The Jerry who would come back after this goodbye would be in uniform, and would be almost gone again before they'd have so much as a chance to say hello. She felt a little intimidated by him.

“You’re doing something very brave,” she said. It was like she was already talking to a soldier.

“I think I’m doing something very stupid,” he answered with a self-deprecating laugh. “But thank you, nonetheless.” 

“Don’t say that”, she replied, a little shocked at his levity. 

“Well, if I can’t be honest with you, who will ever let me be?” 

Nan shook her head to forget her invented image of him as a solemn soldier and concentrated on the man standing in front of her instead. “I’m sorry. I guess it’s more romantic to think of you going with pride and the noble face of self-sacrifice,” she said, and then even she smiled a little.

“Instead of going like a kid all excited to fight some Germans, and trying to hide how terrifying I find all of it?”

“Oh, Jerry,” Nan sighed. “I wish I could be at your side and help.”

“The Eleanor of Aquitaine to my Louis VII,” he said with a smile. “It would be hard not to be inspired, knowing we’re fighting for women like you.” Nan caught her breath and blinked quickly, trying not to cry. He looked at her intently for a moment, then seemed to change his mind, sighing. “But instead I’ll have to hold on to images of our beautiful Canadian homes. Even if they’re looking a little empty in the coming year,” he said lightly, trying to lift the mood.

"I will be home," she said.

"Not really," he answered, his voice low and teasing. "You'll be studying in Redmond, which is quite a long way from home--"

"Of course, I knew I could count on you to take everything literally, geographically, instead of romantically like you should," she replied, pretending to be offended, but almost laughing instead. "I meant--I will be the home you can come back to."

They both fell silent at that, not laughing anymore. Nan blushed furiously, not quite believing what she had said.

"Will you?" Jerry asked in a strangled voice.

Nan bit her lip but didn't hesitate. "Always," she said. She almost added that he should not have to ask, but somehow, this one time, he did have to.

He took her hand in his.

"I love you, Anne," and she caught her breath, "and I will come back home to you, and we'll be married here, right here besides the spring, and our children will play in this blessed valley as we did before them, and our children's children will too and oh, Anne, Anne, Anne," he said, and he didn't take the time to catch his breath before kissing her.

Nan felt lost in emotion; happiness and sadness overwhelming her, and the tears finally came. Jerry wiped them away, whispering apologies before kissing her again, his hands framing her face.

After a few minutes, or maybe a few months, they stood with their foreheads pressed together, both of them trying to wrestle their feelings.

“I can’t believe you did wait years to kiss me again,” Nan finally said. 

Jerry laughed, a sweet, sad sort of laugh. “And now I’m asking you to wait once more. I should have just married you years ago. It seemed important to wait to be able to provide for you,” he said, looking away into the distance.

“You did everything right,” she whispered. “It was a very sweet sort of waiting.”

“I’m afraid sweetness is out of the question for the coming months,” he said.

“Well, there’s something to be said for the hopeful faith of Penelopes, too,” she replied, her romantic side taking over once more. 

“Luckily the Saint Lawrence is too cold for mermaids,” he answered with a grin. She smiled, too. She knew he was leaving in a few minutes, in a few hours, and again, for so long, in a few days. 

She decided to keep smiling until then.


End file.
